Old Love, New Life
"Old Love, New Life" is the 8th and final episode in the second season of Campaign 2.0, and the 16th episode overall in the campaign. Summary * Bryna takes that gunshot, alright. Sulelia doesn’t waste a moment in shouting “Lady! What is wrong with you?” Runya pays her no mind and explains that she doesn’t give a shit about anyone else here but Bryna, and Bryna has something she wants: the Birthstone. * Bryna turns to Malveria. “YOU!” That bitch set us up! Malveria doesn’t meet her eyes. * Runya orders us all to go to the sitting room, and she’s pretty fucking pissed off. Bryna puts Rami outside, and Runya allows it. She demands Bryna give her the Birthstone, or else. Bryna reaches into her bag for it, but instead tries to feel around for the Slapdash Sphere, hoping that it had teleported in there at some point... and she actually finds it! * Having never used it before she finally decides to try and activate it, and focuses... and the orb disappears. In Bryna’s hand lies a folded piece of paper. * Well, that didn’t work. She finally holds out the Birthstone to Runya. Gareth seriously questions that decision, asking Bryna if she’s reaaally about to do this. Hmmm... well, maybe not! Bryna then quick-draws her pistol and shoots Runya right in the shoulder. * At that moment, the wizard, Yuan'Da'Nal, shoots out a wall of flame, dividing us, but leaving Malveria with us and Thomal left on the other side. * Sulelia’s fuckin irate with Malveria, and brings her sword down into her. “You’re a bitch, you lied-“ that’s one strike, pumped with smite no less, “-and your name sounds like a FUCKING DISEASE!” And with the second swing of Sulelia’s sword, Malveria’s brought down; unconscious, not dead. She just took it, tears streaming down her face as she’s cut into… I feel pretty bad. Mikayla feels pretty awful. Our characters don’t give a shit! BOO HOO. * But, uh, the whole overall fight didn’t go well. At all. In fact, we got our asses handed to us. Seeing everyone go down convinces Bryna that this is a hopeless fight. She gives in and holds out the Birthstone once more in a final offering. * Runya takes it. She pulls something out from her bag, and then disappears. The rest of her crew tie us all up together. They leave us in the now burning house as they all teleport away, too. * The binds prove easy to break; Thomal flexes once and it all comes free. We all scamper out of the house and hurriedly ready our things, dump everything into our cart... and out there sits Jon Lithenburg, the dude that Gareth delivered a letter to last session. * He’s appropriately freaked the hell out by the house in flames behind us and asks us what the heck happened. We tell him we were set up and almost killed. And apparently, the damn place wasn’t even Malveria’s house to begin with - Jon tells us it was a stinking rental home. He feels pretty bad. So bad, in fact, that he’s willing to give us somewhere to stay at his estate in the meantime. * Stranger effing danger, man. We know how that went last time. Malaria-lookin ass bitch. But, with enough Insight rolls, we conclude that the dude’s probably trustworthy. * On the way to Jon’s place, we all agree that we gotta pursue Runya. Whatever she’s up to is probably real dangerous. Gareth asks how Bryna knows her, and she reveals that she’d gotten Runya expelled from the Augury after discovering evidence of her worshipping demons. BUT FIRST, we’ll finally check up on Thomal’s son up in the mountains. * Bryna recognizes the Lithenburg name. They’re filthy rich folks who have a long-standing feud with the rivaling family of the Hearthshires. In explaining this to Sulelia, Jon pipes up and reaffirms this. Bryna questions why no one’s made an attempt to come to a compromise; Jon replies that if it were up to him, it would’ve happened a long time ago. He also takes a particular interest in Gareth’s horse. Jon invites him to a horse race at his estate, and Gareth agrees. * Bryna inspects the paper given to her by the orb. It’s schematics of some sort of device - some giant contraption that Bryna can only vaguely recognize as some kind of portal... thing. Bryna’s never heard of any of the materials listed on this thing, either. But besides that, she, uh, horrifiedly realizes that the handwriting... matches her late wife’s. * What the fuck. Haha, what the fuck? She folds it back into her bag. * We’ve arrived! We’re led to the guest cabin and bunker down for the night. Thomal plops down on a bed and absolutely destroys it under his massive weight. Sulelia and Angeal get an entire bed wedged in a door frame. Don’t ask me how it happened. * That night... Bryna has a dream. She’s accompanied by her wife and an adventuring party. They’re fleeing from something in a cave, and Bryna accidentally caves in her wife after giving the order to blow an exit shut. * However, she isn’t crushed by the rubble like Bryna thought, but is instead cornered by a giant fiery being on the other side. It offers to let her see Bryna again if she does it’s bidding, and she agrees. * Bryna then sees her hammering away at an anvil, chains at her wrists. Before her sits a prototype Thunder Cannon. A massive fiery hand plucks it from her, inspects it, and rumbles: “Good. MORE!” * Bryna’s taken through visions of her wife building increasingly more dangerous machines, ranging from cannons to entire vehicles that roam the land and sky. Armies of devils are seen wielding the Thunder Cannon and obliterating anything in their path. Lastly, she’s seen scribbling away at the blueprints the Slapdash Sphere gave Bryna. * Bryna wakes up in a cold sweat. Upon waking, Sulelia and Angeal find Bryna absolutely pouring over the schematics, having spent all night trying to memorize them. * Sulelia’s like, holy shit, are you okay? The conversation grows a little heated before Bryna angrily asks if Sulelia has any idea what it’s like to have lost someone, and know it’s entirely your fault… to which Sulelia replies that she DOES happen to know. Angeal pipes up and also happens to relate; she’s the reason her mother died. Bryna apologizes and tells them of her late wife, and that bringing her back is now more important of a matter than ever. * On her own time, Angeal tries to take Bryna’s fortune. In it, she sees the same visions that Bryna did, and sees her wife completing the schematics and sending it away in the Slapdash Sphere. * It made quite the journey into Bryna’s hands. Whoever else found in the past had pretty terrible things happen to them. One dude is turned inside out upon touching it, and another lady bursts into flames trying to activate it. Angeal then sees the sphere finally make its way to Bryna, and that’s the rest of what she receives from the fortune. * She asks Bryna and Sulelia whether the Slapdash Sphere’s ever killed anyone, to which they respond with an incredulous no. It hasn’t done anything like that in their hands, at least! It’s also weird to note that there are written accounts of the orb that date back thousands of years. * After that, we head to the August Bazaar to look for coats, but find no such thing. Angeal finds a button-eyes doll - featureless, save for its blond hair. Weird... * A high-pitched, nasally voice pipes up from behind us. “HEY! ARE YOU SULELIA?” We turn to find Blirt the Wonder Goblin (not an actual title), Sulelia’s very best friend! She’s got peculiar yellow skin, red hair, and a smattering of blue freckles across her face. * Sulelia and Blirt are absolutely elated to be in each other’s company again; they’re long time friends! Blirt’s a traveling merchant, and she offers us a look at some of her merchandise, including but not limited to: ** A dagger that glows in the presence of goblins (“Oh, that dagger? It always glows! It’s glowed for as long as I’ve had it!”) ** A book on how to communicate with ducks that Thomal purchases ** And a pocket watch that’s activated by offerings of meat. Bryna buys it. * We bid farewell to our yellow friend... thing... and head back to Jon’s place to see how Gareth fares in the horse race. He places 4th out of 5! Good job, Gareth. * And now, we are finally, FINALLY, off for the mountains. Thomal’s son awaits! He borrows Sulelia’s sending stone to inform his wife of his nearing arrival. She seems a little irritated, but we’re glad to hear that his son’s still alive. * We’re a couple days into our journey when Sulelia finds a orc baby seemingly abandoned on the side of the road! It’s so young... and a girl, to boot. She decides to name her Lilith, and we take her with us for the time being. We plan to leave her in the care of Thomal’s clan when we get there.